


Such A Fever Long

by plaindealingvillainess



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Discussions of addictive behavior, Help I never know how to tag, Johnlock Gift Exchange, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:03:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plaindealingvillainess/pseuds/plaindealingvillainess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some things Sherlock knows like the beating of his heart. There are some things that will never fade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such A Fever Long

**Author's Note:**

> For anglophile-rin during the Johnlock Gift Exchange. Their prompt was 'addict Sherlock'.

I guess I’ve always been an addict," people say, hands running through their hair, balancing their chins, wrapped around their knees. "Some people just are that way. The psychiatric files, thicker and thicker, much more clinical about it. Addictive personalities." 

Liars, all of them. Addictions are learned, not made. Learned in the twist of a smile after a pretty girl, cracking knuckles at the sight of so much as a D20, the hiss of breath at a needle’s sting, the glassy eyes in a rush of adrenalin.

In the matched breath in silent moments.

And, like so many lessons, so many habits and reflexes and societal conditions, it’s impossible to forget an addiction. It’s the accent that returns in times of stress, murmured prayers over dinner, the chapped skin of a retired surgeon. Things which can be controlled, consciously ignored, but not forgotten. Replaced with different neuroses, different representations, but the behavior remains.

Sherlock will never stop shivering when he sees a needle, Sherlock will never unlearn the way his veins can sing, Sherlock will never forget the lessons discovered in those moments.

But he has found his replacement in John’s lips. That is, and was, and ever shall be. Though, of course, John is not salvation. John is no angel, and John is no shining grace.

But John is his, and here, and precious. An addiction no one judges, an influence that no one reprimands.

John is the man he loves. And that, now, is what makes Sherlock’s breath hitch.


End file.
